The best BMW restorer in America. Tim Stafford. I stumbled across his shop, and the Von Dutch painted BMW he's going to mechanically repair.

"The 2006 Las Vegas motorcycles auction clearly set new highs for the value of fine old BMW motorcycles. The $20,000 brought by Tim's white R50/2 was probably a record for a slash-2 without a sidecar. But I believe as well that the three BMWs Tim brought to Vegas has shown vintage BMW motorcycle cognoscenti a level of restoration perfection previously unseen."

He would have been wrenching, but I was interviewing him. Nice guy who took the time to swap some stories and didn't mind me taking photos...

That is a cool office display... no question.

The surest sign of utter respect from your customers is them trusting you with irreplaceble treasures from their collections... like this Von Dutch painted bike, it's in for a mechanical. Nobody touches the paint.

The cracking paint on the tank, never going to be messed with, the rock chip? Who cares about them? No one. Those stripes were applied at the hands of the Da Vinci of pinstriping. They won't be restored.

The above was intentionally composed with the poster reflecting the actual Vespa it portrays beside it

That is a sweet showroom floor display! 1949 if I recall correctly

Still has the 1970 papers... now that is cool!

Most of these are wall paper size for your computer, or to print.

I'd never heard of Zundapp, but learned from Tim that they made a nice 4 cylinder 4 stroke bike for the War effort, of superior design over what BMW had at the time... but Zundapp could not make enough for the war, so Zundapp was forced to give up their right to the design, and BMW went on to make the bikes for the war, and established the name recognition of a great engineering design for bikes.... and Zundapp didn't.

Similar situation to the Bantam company designing the Jeep, but being so unable to mass produce them for the Army's high demand, that the US Govt gave the designs to all the high production capable factories.

I forgot to include Bill H's comment here for everyone to see:

"Magda Goebbels, wife of Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels, was at one time (through most of the '20s') married to Guenther Quandt, whose business holdings included a very large chunk of BMW. Even after the divorce, Magda and Guenther had a very friendly relationship, which likely made BMW a natural choice for German Army motorcycle contracts."

Bultacos.. the above is one serious racer.

From Tim "The Bultacos are all mid to late 1960s 250cc 5 speed Metralla (model name). The one above with a glass tank is the race kited one called kit America by most. Un-kited this model was tested by David Dixon (for some bike mag) and he nicknamed them the Barcelona Bomb. At 103 mph it was the fastest 250 single of that time. At least for a production street legal bike.In 1967, the first year the IOM (Isle of Mann) had a production class this bike took 1st Bill Smith, 2nd Tommy Robb, and 6th with Kevin Cass. The bikes all used the over the counter race kits much like my bike. I however do not think they were the underdog for the 250cc production class but have not read much more. By the way, their average speed was 88.63 and 88.62 (1st and 2nd) for 3 laps of the 37 3/4 mile mountain circuit. This fact raised quite a stir at the time."

1 comment:

I'd never heard of Zundapp, but learned it's a German manufactor that had better engineering and design than the BMW it competed with, but wasn't chosen by the people in charge to get the favored contracts from the German govt

Ther's probably a pretty good reason for that- Magda Goebbels, wife of Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels, was at one time (through most of the '20s') married to Guenther Quandt, who's business holdings included a very large chunk of BMW. Even after the divorce, Magda and Guenther had a very friendly relationship, which likely made BMW a natural choice for German Army motorcycle contracts.